A questionnaire survey of care staff in nursing homes examined staff stress. Staff completed questionnaires covering Type A behaviour, job satisfaction, psychological well-being, relaxation behaviour, coping skills and demographic details. A specific measure of nursing home stress was developed following a pilot study. From a total sample of 375, 112 (30%) responses were obtained. On the stress questionnaire the major stressors were found to be 'unsatisfactory wages', 'shortage of essential resources', 'not enough staff per shift', 'feeling undervalued by management', 'lifting heavy patients' and 'working with colleagues who are happy to let others do the work'. Factor analysis of stress questionnaire responses identified five major stress groupings. These were, 'differing expectations about patient care', 'management factors', 'lack of support from other staff', 'feeling inadequately trained to deal with job demands' and 'home-work conflicts'. Examination of stress outcomes showed that many staff were under pressure, with high levels of smoking and alcohol intake. Given the increasing importance of nursing home care for the elderly the present study is timely. The implications of the findings for further research, and for the training of staff in nursing homes are considered.

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Background Operating Department Practitioners (ODPs) provide an essential contribution to the multidisciplinary teamwork undertaken in the perioperative environment throughout the anaesthetic, surgical and post anaesthetic recovery phases of the patients' hospital treatment. The aim of this study was to explore ODP students' experiences and emotional responses to simulation teaching and learning strategies during their pre-registration curriculum. Simulated teaching is well documented as a learning and assessment strategy throughout industry and health by offering safe, low-risk and interactive learning for students to develop a range of skills and competence in order to develop clinical performance (Ulrich and Mancini 2013). Although minimal evidence is available for ODP curricula, parallels can be drawn between trends that have been observed in nurse education, regarding the increase in student numbers and the limited placement capacity. In nursing the United Kingdom's (UK) Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) took an innovative response by allowing healthcare educators the opportunity to replace up to 300 curriculum 'practice' hours with simulated learning (NMC, 2007). The Health and Care Professions Council (HcPC), UK's registering body for all Allied Health Professionals, including ODPs, outlines specific knowledge and skills in their standards of proficiency, which must be demonstrated in order for a qualified ODP to practice safely and register with them (HcPC, 2014). It is plausible to assume that not every ODP student will receive equal exposure to, and be able to perform safely when presented with critical clinical situations in the practice environment, due to the unpredictable nature of such events. And even when the events do occur, the novice student may not be allowed involvement in the care

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The heat used in electro cautery causes cells to boil and explode or simply dry producing a gaseous by product known as diathermy smoke, this smoke may have mutagenic and carcinogenic potential similar to that of cigarette smoke. (Spearman et al 2007) A search of electronic databases was performed and selected articles were reviewed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool to enable a review of relevant articles to be undertaken. The findings of the review were that 45 compounds were identified 9 of these were found to be hazardous when cross referenced against the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) list of approved workplace exposure limits and 4 were carcinogens;This research indicates that the use of an extraction device to remove smoke when using diathermy is best practice. However, until more conclusive evidence is available on the actual health risks of diathermy smoke as opposed to the potential health risks, it will be difficult for the organisations that govern health and safety at work to create legislation on the need to extract it from the operating theatre air.